The Mermaid's Song by Jenny Bloom

Author:Jenny Bloom [Bloom, Jenny]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Published: 2020-02-24T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

“Oh my God, Rashmi! How did you not ask her out there and then?!”

I winced, snatching my phone from my cart as Hank shrieked to the high heavens. In retrospect, putting him on speaker wasn’t the best idea, especially as the grocery store was fairly packed. I got double the glares from an elderly couple as I quickly switched the speaker off. “You know she’s still going through a divorce, right?”

“That excuse is getting pretty old.”

“It’s not—you should see how much it gets to her!” I sputtered out the words, nearly dropping the box of spaghetti in my hand. “I don’t even want to think about how much stress being in a relationship would add.”

“To which person, exactly?”

Even over the phone, I knew Hank could feel the deadpan energy radiating off me.

“Look, all I’m saying is you could be totally off the mark here.”

“Oh, I want to hear this one.” I tossed the box into my cart, pushing my cart farther down the pasta aisle while scanning prices for marinara sauce. “Please, enlighten me how Anika is desperately waiting for me to ask her out. Because from what I’ve seen so far, her and relationships tend to mix like a match and gasoline.” I opted with a large jar of sauce with meat flavoring, placing it next to the pasta before continuing down the row.

Hank audibly sighed on his end of the phone. “Divorce isn’t the end of the world, you know.”

“It is when said marriage wasn’t even graced by your mom’s presence.”

Hank was silent for a good ten seconds. “Oh, fuck.”

“And not even because she didn’t want to go.” I pulled a bag of croutons from the shelf, only to quickly put them back when I caught the words, ‘Caesar flavored’ written across the top. “Anika thinks the marriage fell apart because mom didn’t live long enough to help. Did you know she was a wedding planner?”

“Oh, fuck.”

“Exactly,” I said. “So, what makes you think she’d even want to think about dating--?”

“No, Rashmi,” My phone suddenly started blowing up with text messages as Hank managed to stammer out. “Anika’s last name is Jenner, right?”

“Yeah, but what’s that got to do with—”

“Just look what I sent.”

I pulled my phone back, flipping through at least a year’s worth of texts from him. “Man, I really should clean this thing out,” I sighed, thumb growing numb while I skimmed through. A few selfies, some cute pictures of cats, and--bingo.

I nearly dropped the phone there and there.

Hank had sent me a woman’s profile for a popular bridal magazine. She was of similar build to Anika, hair more of a muted russet than the firetruck red I’d grown so fond of. Her hair was cropped short, a pair of thin-rimmed glasses set down her nose as she held a clipboard close to her chest. The title read, ‘Wedding Must-Haves’, and she was square in the center of it. “Oh my God, is that,”

“Analise-Rose.” Hank sounded just as stunned as I did. “Full name; Analise Rose Jenner.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.